Page 51 of Sweet Surrender

Nick flung himself toward the center of the rink, managing to stay on his feet.

Cal turned to the wall, crashing into it so that he was half slung over it, his feet hanging in the air for a moment before he lowered himself to the ice.

Though thankfully the boys hadn’t touched the little girl, they had both come close enough to frighten her. She fell down hard on her bottom, and began to wail.

“Boys,” Zane sighed, as the world slid back into real time for Becca.

Nick and Cal had huddled back together, with guilty looks on their faces.

“Is she okay?” Zane was asking the other dad, as he comforted his daughter. “I’m so sorry about my boys.”

“We didn’t hit her,” Nick said defensively. But Becca could tell from his expression that he felt bad.

“She was really scared,” Cal murmured as Zane skated back to join them, a stern look on his face. “We were going too fast.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Becca told the boys firmly. “It’s what we do afterward that matters.”

Cal’s eyes met Nick’s, and before their father could say a word of reprimand, the two were skating off slowly toward the man and his little girl.

“We’re sorry,” Nick told the dad. “We were skating too fast.”

“We didn’t mean to scare you,” Cal said softly, crouching to talk to the tiny girl.

“You’re a big kid now,” Nick said, joining his brother by the girl. “You can skate with us if you want.”

“Slow,” the girl scolded them.

“We can be slow,” Nick said, nodding.

“Will you show us how to skate slowly?” Cal asked her, offering his mittened hand.

She looked up at him suspiciously for a moment, before giving him her hand with a regal look on her face.

“What about me?” Nick asked, offering her his hand too. “I want to learn how to go slowly too.”

She took it, and a moment later, the three of them were skatingslowlyaway.

Becca smiled, so proud of the boys for trying their best to make things right for the little girl.

The little girl’s dad turned and gave Zane an impressed look, and Zane nodded to him. His pride in those boys was plain on his face, and it tugged at Becca’s heart to see it.

“Wow,” Zane said softly after a moment. “Thank you for what you said to them.”

“They’re wonderful,” she told him. “They always want to do the right thing. They just need a helping hand sometimes. We all do.”

Watching the boys skating with their new little friend, with the beauty of Sugarville Grove all around them and Zane by her side, filled Becca with quiet joy.

She suddenly felt like she had gained an important part of herself, a part that she hadn’t even known was missing.

“Becca?” a familiar voice called out.

She looked over to see Emily Bouchard, the fourth-grade teacher, on one of the benches near the skating rink. She was eyeing Becca with a funny expression.

16

ZANE

Afew days later, Zane parked his truck on Maple Street, in front of the family’s ice cream shop, and jumped out to grab a barrel and bring it in.

---